Expert: Ismar Avdic, Eng. - 11/20/2006

Question
Hello,
 I'm a young 18 year old who wishes to pursued a career in the aviation industries, I am already attending  my community college that offers a aviation flight technology program, Is it true that getting your pilot license is not hard? the difficult part is obtaining your flight hours? my question is, if i graduated from with a pilot degree in which job should i start? and what is the cheapest way to obtain my flight hours? and how much does it cost to flight. Can i obtain my flight hours towards a commercial aircraft if i fly a small cesna or a jet.  
                               Thank You
                                 Gonzalo

Answer
Gonzalo!
getting pilot license is not HARD definetelly. It requires a lot of patiency but understanding what you will learn and be ready for each flight lesson is imperative. If you are not ready for lesson, then you will end up repeading old materials or lesson and on the top of that you will ending paying more then you really prefer. Fact that getting license in USA (private pilot license) you will need about 65 flight hours (average hours to get license in USA) and you will need to spent about $5500. Sometimes those numbers could be higher or smaller (you have to be really focused and have good instructor).
You can obtain hours through the flying a smaller Cessna airplane because they are cheaper to rent vs. flying a jet. Jets are extremelly expensive, REMEMBER one fact all hours that you need you have to pay by yourself. Your total bill to get private, instrument and commercial license will be proximatelly around $35.000-55.000 or more, depending from school to school.
Average flight lesson in USA will cost you around $200 per lesson. When you get license you will rent small airplane to collect hours, renting an airplane cost from 79.00 to 120,00 per hour. those prices are for small Cessna 172 airplane. For jet you are looking from $5.500-7.500 per hour depending from plane to plane.

Good Luck
Ismar